An emotional President Bush yesterday hugged AIDS patients at an Uganda clinic and heard a children’s chorus – many of them AIDS orphans – sing “America the Beautiful” as he vowed to fight the dread disease.

“You are not alone in this fight. America – America has decided to act . . . We want to be on your side in a big way,” Bush said after touring the TASO clinic in Entebbe.

“I believe God has called us into action. I believe we have a responsibility – my country has got a responsibility. We are a great nation, we’re a wealthy nation. We have a responsibility to help a neighbor in need.”

Bush was visibly moved as he was serenaded by the Watoto Ugandan children’s chorus – many of whom lost their parents to AIDS.

The kids, clad in leopard prints with matching scarves for girls and hats for boys, sang Uganda’s national anthem and “America the Beautiful.”

To fight the disease, Bush renewed his pledge to spend a full $15 billion against AIDS the day after Congress trimmed funds for the first year of his AIDS plan.

The president recounted how a woman named Noreen founded the TASO clinic after she asked her dying, AIDS-infected husband what was most precious to him, and he replied, “Just touching me, holding my hand, just being there.”

Bush picked Uganda as the model for his $15 billion anti-AIDS program – the ABC approach, where A stands for abstinence if possible, B for being faithful, and C for using a condom.

Botswana, where Bush stopped Thursday, has the world’s highest HIV/AIDS infection rate at 38 percent. By contrast, Uganda claims to have cut the infection rate to 5 percent.

“You’re lifting the stigma of the disease, and you’re lifting despair,” Bush said. “You’re welcoming lonely, isolated people as brothers and sisters. You treat every soul with respect and dignity, because that’s the only way to treat a child of God.”